Temperaments

[Les Smith]

On Sun, 25 Jan 1998, ralph m martin wrote:

> Bill
> I laud your right and privilege to express your opinion and wish, in the
> same spirit of acceptanace,  to express mine.
> 
> The historic temperments were , for the most part, very appropriate for
> the music that was being played on them. Much of it was diatonic in
> nature, using simple chord progressions  like i-IV-V. When desiring a
> different "mood" for his composition, the composer would very often write
> in another key to satisfy that particular situation.
> 
> The music of the past half century, or so, is replete with 7th, 9th and
> 13th structures that all rightfully belong to different keys. 

Hi, Ralph. Actually it wasn't so much the fact that that early music used
"simple" chord progressions like 1-lV-V, because many of those early com-
posers used much more extended harmonic foundations, the problem lies in 
the fact that even thoss extended harmonies were essentially what we call
"harmonic in nature and lacked "color, in and of themselves. There are two
kinds of notes in music, harmonic and  non-harmonic. A harmonic tone is
one that is part of the underlying harmony, or chord; a non-harmonic tone
is one that is NOT a part of the underlying harmony. Non-harmonic tones
are sometimes called "color tones". Polyphonic music aside, most early
music was essentially "harmonic" in nature, and consisted primarily of
notes which were a part of the underlying harmony. Because of this, the
music, itself, was essentiall "plain vanilla" and required a none-equal
temperament for its "color. For example: the well-known first prelude
in C, from the first book of the WTC. The harmonic basis of this piece
goes far beyond the 1, lV, V of C, but even so the chords, themselves,
are all plain-jane in nature--majors, minors, 6th's, 7th's, dim 7th's,
and a couple of major 7th's. EVERY NOTE IN THE PIECE IS HARMONIC IN
NATURE, THERE IS NOT A SINGLE "COLOR TONE" IN THE ENTIRE PIECE. The
only dissonance in the piece accurs when old JS throws in a grotesque
tonic pedal point (C) against a B which is part of the V7 harmony at
the closing cadence. 

Even by Beethoven's time, things had not progressed very much. Like
the Bach prelude, the first movement of the "Moonlight" sonata, con-
tains a harmonic structure that goes far beyond l, lV and V, yet here
too, the music is still essentially "harmonic" in nature and con-
tains very few "color", or non-harmonic tones--exactly eight, in the
entire movement, to be precise and, since both such phrases are repeat-
ed twice, there are only actually 4 non-harmonic tones. Further, since
the second occurance of the NH tones is merely a transposition of the
first occurance, the piece, in essence, is written with only two NH
tones. The lack of color, or NH tones in this piece, couple with the
slowness of the movement, is the reason many people fall asleep when
listening to it in ET. Music like this, like the Back prelude, bene-
fits from a HT--the unexpected dissonances jog the listener back to
consciousness just as he starts to doze off. :)

The third movement of the same sonata, although technically a real
"bear" to play, also shows a fairly complex structure from the num-
ber of chords, or harmonies used, but once again contains very few-
relatively speaking- "color" or non-harmonic tones. Fully 95% of the
notes in the third movement are harmonic in nature, that is part of
the underlying chord, and even those non-harmonic tones that do occur
are very simple in nature, tonic-suspensions, upper auxillaries, etc.
Once again, despite the apparent complexity of the music from a tech-
nical standpoint, color-wise--compared to what would happen later--
this music is still "plain valilla" and closely related to what was
happening in the Bach prelude. This sonata is still from Beethoven's
so-called second period, which would end with opus 57. In his so-
called third-period, we start to see a greater use of "color" or
non-harmonic tones in the music, itself. The music is thus less depend-
ent upon an enequal temperament for its harmonic coloration. It's
also during this last period that we start to see sonatas containing
fugue movements. It's said that Beethoven spent his entire life liv-
ing in Bach's shadow and towards the end was determined to show that
he could handle the fugue form as well as the great master. You can
listen to the last sonatas and decide for yourself how well he fared.

Schubert(The "Wanderer" Fantasy), Mendelssohn ( Prelude and Fugue
in E minor) and Brahms (Sonatas) extended the use of non-harmonic tones
to a certain extent, but it was Chopin and Liszt who set the world on
its ear, harmonically-speaking. These two, more than anyone else, took
the color out of the temperament where it had always been and put it
directly into the music. Chopin used extended chords, altered chords,
non-harmonic tones, ephermal-ambiguous tonal centers, foreign chord
progressions and combined them all with chromaticism to create a
harmonic vocabulary which had never been seen before. Liszt was even 
more daring--if somewhat less artistic--than Chopin, and by the time    
the two of them were finished they had changed the face of music    
harmony and the concept of "tonal-color" forever.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea, huh? :-)   

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net